Thank you all for the rapid replies, I appreciate it. Ralf, your examples from the 2001 catalogue suggest their were four types of red offered in that year.
Is it possible that these names may not actually denote separate shades, as fronobulax suggests?
Welcome Semitone, and I apologize for the "butt-inski": "NO", in a given model year each color was distinct shade, as evidenced by the color chip chart in the '97 Guild Gallery #1 and the 2001 Fender Frontline catalog.
Torino Red and Fiesta
are very close but still different, Transparent Red and Cherry were very different shades, but I have a very strong suspicion that what Guild simply called "Red" on very early ('87) Songbird Customs (A derivative of the Bluesbird) was in fact the same as Fender's "Torino" or "Fiesta", although Fender didn't own Guild yet.
"Black Cherry" was very unusual, looking almost exactly as its namesake, or even darker.
It does appear that after Fender acquired Guild they actually added colors to Guild's selection from their own broad range of available finishes, but typically there were 2-3 colors listed as "Standard" finishes on a given model, and those
could change from year-to-year, although certain popular finishes seemed to remain available and are very commonly seen.
BUT in general ANY finish color could be
special ordered on a model it wasn't standard on.
GAD's '97 listing was for all Guild finishes that year, but only a few were "standard" on any given model, and those were normally shown in the price list, that's where Ralf gets his info about standard Bluesbird vs Blues 90 colors for '01.
What we're lacking is a comprehensive set of price pages for the Fender era that would outline how color selections may have changed from year-to-year, although from observation they seemed to get "flashier" around '98 through the close of Westerly
The 1997 catalogue seems to be more straightforward, with transparent red available. The AAA range models seem to be thinner on the ground, is this true?
Tough call as there's no way to truly distinguish 'em by s/n, only by the quality of the top.
The only other "guide" was that in the '01 catalog at least, there were only the 3 colors listed as "standard" for AAA's, as far as I can tell we have no idea if those changed over the course of production, and the two resident experts here, Ralf and GAD, are citing the only readily available 2 sources I know of myself.
And we can only get model year from the s/n, not finish code.
The difficulty is further compounded in that some of 'em are obviously AAA stripey flame maple tops and others are heavily quilted but have a AAA color.
If you haven't seen it already, I suggest scanning the Bluesbird owner's thread for a great overview of both standard colors and examples of "??" colors and models:
http://www.letstalkguild.com/ltg/sh...luesbirds-Owners-amp-Long-Time-Borrowers-List
Even Blues 90's which are readily identifiable by their fretboards are seen with colors that weren't "Standard" for 'em in '01 at least.
So were they special ordered or was that color standard for their model year?
I'm not even sure if Hans Moust could tell us.
Final note as somebody mentioned already, I think:
Just because Guild printed out their catalogs and price lists doesn't mean they felt bound to 'em as if by law...best as we can tell they did whatever they wanted whenever they wanted, all covered by the simple disclaimer "Specs subject to change without notice"
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